Professional Study Trip

Developing creative entrepreneurship in the world

Copenhagen, 16-22 November 2014

The Creative Industries Agency, together with the Centre for Innovation Consulting and the Centre for Cultural and Experience Economy, and with the support of the Moscow Department of Science, Industrial Policy and Entrepreneurship and the Northern Dimension Partnership on Culture, organised a professional study trip for ten creative entrepreneurs from Moscow entitled “Developing and supporting creative entrepreneurship in the world”.

The study trip took place from 16-22 November in Copenhagen (Denmark) and involved various types of events and get-togethers, from taking part in masterclasses and seminars at the International Final of the Creative Business Cup to visiting offbeat creative workshops on an old industrial barge called Illutron.

Objective: to promote the establishment of organisations and business projects within the creative industries in Moscow that are both internationally competitive and meet the best international practices.

Goals:

familiarity with the best international practices and trends in the sphere of creative entrepreneurship;

establishing professional lines of communication with potential international partners;

organising joint projects with foreign partners.

Selecting the participants

The participants of the study trip were selected on the basis of a competition and also included the winning team of Creative Business Cup Russia 2014 and the Moscow Finalists of Creative Business Cup Russia 2013 and 2014. The criterion for selection was, first and foremost, the business’ relationship to the creative industries. Only entrepreneurs from Moscow took part in the study trip.

Study trip participants:

1. Taisia Kaygorodova, DD-Shop – the design, production and sale of clothing through offline and online shops. 2. Lada Shapovalova, Kolobook – the publishing of junior books featuring individual, unique graphics and typography. 3. Valery Mifodovsky, 3Plet Publishing (national winning team) – a new music format and platform for artists and labels to release albums as their own branded mobile apps where audio is tightly coupled with HD visuals, exclusive stories, lyrics and more for an immersive and engaging consumer experience.4. Andrey Pantukhin, 3Plet Publishing (national winning team).5. Anastasia Sherbakova, Shusha wooden toys – the design, production and sale of original wooden children’s toys. 6. Vasiliy Perfilev, Shusha wooden toys.7. Anna Tikhomirova, Children’s book bus Bumper – works in schools, orphanages and other organisations and holds educational programmes for groups of children on topics related to reading and books.8. Alexander Turchin, Seminotka – musical and educational programmes for children and adults, combining different kinds of art and music to make learning fun and creative.9. Sergey Korsakov, Cardbordia – an independent community of artists, performers, event managers and experts with various backgrounds from Russia, the US, the UK, the Netherlands and other countries.10. Sofia Sheyman, Mamas place – a space where women can have an interesting time with their baby learning something new or communicating with experts and professionals from different spheres.

Programme

The study trip programme was structured as follows: for the first three days (17-19 November), participants visited events at the International Final of the Creative Business Cup. Alongside the study trip programme, the national winning team presented their project to the jury and took part in an invitation-only Investor’s Pitch event.During the study trip, participants got to meet the best creative entrepreneurs in the world – the international finalists of the Creative Business Cup, a competition for creative entrepreneurs; they presented their creative products to an international expert community and potential investors as part of the specially-organised Market Place; and they attended a number of lectures and took part in masterclasses at the International Final of the Creative Business Cup such as:

«Getting from No to Yes, How Crowd Funding is Changing Finance» by Liz Wald, VP of International Indiegogo, USA

Participants spent the remaining two days (20 and 21 November) with a team from the Centre for Cultural and Experience Economy (CKO) visiting creative and business sites and meeting successful creative entrepreneurs and the founders of creative spaces (including a music centre, a creative coworking space, a business incubator, and a cultural design agency for the territories). They also attended lectures by experts from CKO Søren Würtz и Rasmus Wiinstedt Tscherning. The following visits were planned as part of the programme: